Mental Health, Operational Stress, and Organizational Stress Among Sworn and Unsworn Police Personnel

Police work is a highly stressful occupation, and, not surprisingly, there is a large body of research investigating the mental health of sworn police officers. However, nearly one third of police organizations now include unsworn personnel, and comparatively little is known about the mental health and well-being of these personnel. The aim of this study was to investigate whether unsworn personnel experience similar levels of work stressors and impact on psychological well-being as sworn police officers within the same law enforcement agency. In this study, 2,440 sworn and unsworn personnel from a large law enforcement agency in Australia completed an organization-wide, anonymous, online mental health and well-being survey. Unsworn personnel were significantly more likely to have probable depression and high levels of psychological distress than sworn personnel, despite having fewer critical incident exposures. Both sworn and unsworn personnel experienced elevated levels of probable posttraumatic stress disorder (at 10.4% and 6.8%, respectively). Unsworn personnel had comparable rates of probable anxiety, alcohol use, and burnout to their sworn counterparts. Unsworn personnel also experienced stress associated with operational stressors as well as organizational stressors. These findings are the first to our knowledge to demonstrate that the mental health profiles of sworn and unsworn personnel are similar in several important ways, and, as such, both require organizational attention.